Fostering Educational Equity in Engineering
Faculty Mentor Name
Ashley Rea, Jonathan Adams, Hadi Ali
Format Preference
Poster
Abstract
Many have identified the marginalization of women that occurs within STEM education, and this research seeks to identify concrete ways in which educators might intervene to create more inclusive learning environments. Researchers in engineering education have evaluated the ways in which the curriculum can be altered to be more inclusive (Dewsbury, 2019), and assessed the outcomes of having diverse teams in the classroom (Oti et al., 2022). In technical and professional communication, researchers have developed taxonomies for understanding communication infrastructure (Adams, 2022) and found that inclusion is not only practiced by people and society, but in the methods that classrooms are conducted and tangibly constructed. However, there is still a need for further research on the social construct of STEM fields and how they have notably become male dominated. To that end, our study seeks to gain firsthand insight from female and gender diverse students and faculty members regarding their experiences in academia. Participants share perspectives and pieces of advice on how we can adjust course curriculum and methodology to establish a more inclusive setting within the introductory engineering courses at the university. This qualitative study seeks to answer: (1) What types of marginalization do women students experience while communicating their work in introductory engineering courses? (2) What strategies do they currently use to circumvent that marginalization?, and (3) What strategies might instructors implement to assist women students in circumventing these moments more effectively?
Fostering Educational Equity in Engineering
Many have identified the marginalization of women that occurs within STEM education, and this research seeks to identify concrete ways in which educators might intervene to create more inclusive learning environments. Researchers in engineering education have evaluated the ways in which the curriculum can be altered to be more inclusive (Dewsbury, 2019), and assessed the outcomes of having diverse teams in the classroom (Oti et al., 2022). In technical and professional communication, researchers have developed taxonomies for understanding communication infrastructure (Adams, 2022) and found that inclusion is not only practiced by people and society, but in the methods that classrooms are conducted and tangibly constructed. However, there is still a need for further research on the social construct of STEM fields and how they have notably become male dominated. To that end, our study seeks to gain firsthand insight from female and gender diverse students and faculty members regarding their experiences in academia. Participants share perspectives and pieces of advice on how we can adjust course curriculum and methodology to establish a more inclusive setting within the introductory engineering courses at the university. This qualitative study seeks to answer: (1) What types of marginalization do women students experience while communicating their work in introductory engineering courses? (2) What strategies do they currently use to circumvent that marginalization?, and (3) What strategies might instructors implement to assist women students in circumventing these moments more effectively?